The cover of Edwin Starr’s 1970 album, “War & Peace.”
When I wrote about Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band covering “War” on their current tour, I described the song as “a No. 1 hit for Edwin Starr in 1970.”
This was accurate. But incomplete.
The song, co-written by Motown mainstays Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, was recorded and released by The Temptations before Starr — a Nashville-born, Cleveland-raised army veteran (though he never saw combat) — made a No. 1 hit out of it. The Temptations version, however, was not released as a single, possibly because, with the Vietnam War dividing the country, the song’s message was deemed too controversial for a group with a big mainstream following.
“War” has also been recorded by many other artists, since then. And so I decided to take a look at some of the different versions of it, through the years.
Here they are, in chronological order.
1. Here is the Temptations version, from their 1970 Psychedelic Shack album. Paul Williams and Dennis Edwards share lead vocals.
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2. Here is Edwin Starr’s version, from his 1970 War & Peace album.
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3. Here it is as a 1982 B-side by The Jam.
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4. Frankie Goes to Hollywood, live in 1984. The song was included on the group’s 1984 debut album, Welcome to the Pleasuredome.
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5. Here is Springsteen’s 1986 video version of “War,” featuring footage from his Sept. 30, 1985 concert at The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. He says, in his introduction: “If you grew up in the ’60s, you grew up with war on TV every night. A war that your friends were involved in. I want to do this song tonight for all the young people out there … ’cause I remember a lot of my friends, when we were 17 or 18, we didn’t have much of a chance to think about how we felt about a lot of things. And the next time, they’re gonna be looking at you. And you’re gonna need a lot of information to know what you’re gonna want to do. Because in 1985, blind faith in your leaders, or in anything, will get you killed.”
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6. Springsteen has dueted with Starr on “War” three times — twice in 1988 and once in 1999. Here they are doing the song at Villa Park in Birmingham, England, in June 1988. (Starr lived in England from 1983 until his death in 2003, at the age of 61.
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7. Hip-hop group Bone-Thugs-N-Harmony covered the song — or the chorus of it, at least — on this version, from the 1998 “Small Soldiers” soundtrack album. Trivia note: Tom Morello — who is joining Springsteen and The E Street Band on the current tour and playing on “War,” among other songs — plays guitar on this recording.
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8. A live version by Edwin Starr from a 2001 holiday-season special of the British television show, “Later … With Jools Holland.”
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9. A musical number, with Jack Black on lead vocals, from the 2010 film “Gulliver’s Travels”!
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10. Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band: March 31, 2026, at The Target Center in Minneapolis.
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